Steele, Richard, Story of Inkle and Yarico

Steele, Richard (Author)
Northeastern University
The Spectator

This is a transcription of Richard Steele's The Story of Inkle and Yarico. The two main characters, a sailor named Thomas Inkle and an indigenous woman named Yarico are borrowed from Richard Ligon's Ligon's A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes from 1657. In this version published in The Spectator in 1711, Steele transforms Ligon's allegory about the inconstancy of love, into a story about the horrors engendered by the hyper-capitalism of the slave trade. While Steele cites Ligon as his main inspiration for this tale, it is known to be an oft-repeated folklore. In fact, the story was later turned into a very popular comic opera that saw modern revivals in the 20th century.

Second Edition - Glasgow : James Knox, William Marshall, and James Duncan, 1767

English

Narratives
Indigenous Narratives
Early Caribbean Slave Narratives
Folklore
Barbados

1767

Steele, Richard. "Inkle and Yarico." in The Spectator, Issue 11. London, 1711.

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